If you know me, you know that I never pack until the very last minute. Before my trip to New York was no exception - I packed mere hours before we had to leave, and that was only because I wanted to catch some sleep before we drove to the airport. This of course led to a bit of stress (I never learn!), and I got only 2-3 hours of sleep before I had to get up again.

We arrived at the airport around 4:30 I think, only to be told that all of KLM’s flights for today have been cancelled, didn’t they tell you? And I’m like “listen, would I BE HERE before the frakking crack of dawn if they told me?”, only I was a bit more polite and just said “no, they didn’t tell me.” The lady was really nice though and told me that I’d been booked over onto SAS’ flights, but this meant that instead of going directly from Trondheim to Amsterdam I would have to change flights in Oslo. Not too happy about that, but even less happy about having to wait 1.5 hours extra at the airport for my flight to leave.

Thankfully I found some Dr. Who on my harddrive, so I kept myself occupied.

Anyway. The flights to Oslo and from there on to Amsterdam were both uneventful. Everything went as scheduled, and I slept most of the time.

Amsterdam airport Schiphol is huge, did you know? I got a map that told me that it would take me about 20 minutes to walk from where I was to where I needed to be. Halfway between those two points was the passport control booths, and the line? MILES LONG, I swear. It took forever, and then I had to walk walk walk walk walk to get to my terminal. Then I bought a bottle of water because I felt I might die from dehydration and heat, only to have it taken from me because WHAT DO YOU KNOW, there’s a security checkpoint AT THE GATE. Who does that!? Schiphol, that’s who, apparently. Security guy came up to me and said “Miss, is this yours? There is no drinking allowed on the premises.” Like I had tried to smuggle with me a bottle with booze. Honestly, it was JUST WATER.

Everything was forgiven when I had boarded the plane and we were in the air though, because let me tell you, KLM KNOWS service. Seriously. I have never met that kind of service level onboard an aircraft before. They fed us so much that eventually I had to say NO to another piece of cake, because I just couldn’t eat any more. Incredible.

I also got to watch 17 Again, which was… Not so good. Really. Much love for Matthew Perry, not so much for Zac Efron. Then I watched some old Big Bang Theory episodes, because they just never stop being funny.

Then I filled out a couple of forms and watched an informational video about how to proceed to gain entrance to the United States. Funny thing though - when they showed the video the first time, it was in Spanish, with Spanish subtitles, and everyone onboard just kept giving each other funny looks, like, “dude, do you understand any of this?”. They showed it in English an hour or two later though, heh.

Ok. New York! I CAN SEE IT! WE’RE LANDING. YAY! WE’RE TAXING TO THE GATE, YAY! NO. WAIT. We’re not taxing to the gate. We’re delayed ON THE GROUND because another plane is coming in with technical difficulties. Crap. I’m in New York but am not allowed to disembark. We waited for a long time. Long enough that I fell asleep again.

Then we were allowed to disembark, FINALLY, and it was a race and a battle to get off first and quickest. I lost. But then we got to the halls where you walk towards immigration, and well, quickest walker gets to immigration first. This one I won. Yeah, that’s right. Don’t let these short legs fool you, I can do a mean powerwalk if I feel like I have to.

So, immigration. Longest queue I’ve met all day. After an hour and a half I finally got to the front of the line, where an overly chirpy young woman was greeting everyone and saying stuff like “NEEEEW YAWK! THE CITY THAT NEVAH SLEEPS! AIN’T YOU HAPPY YOU’RE HERE!! WEAHLCOME!!!”. Finally, it’s my turn to step up to the immigration booth. They take my photo and my fingerprints, glance at my passport and my forms, and send me through, no questions asked. This, apparently, is where it pays off to be European and white and not looking very threatening at all, because others, especially those with Middle-Eastern or African looks (and probably passports) were being held at those booths for forever. I was in and out in 5 minutes. Win!

Located my luggage, was told off by security guard for using my cellphone in the luggage hall (geesh), got through customs, out into the airport, found the toilets (note to other unware travellers through JFK: their toilets flush automatically, so do your business QUICKLY, or, ew.), found an ATM. Then I was asked 1000 times if I needed a taxi, but thankfully I’d read the information telling me to NOT say yes to those because they are gypsy taxis (or pirate taxis as they would be called here). Finally made it to the REAL Yellow Cab taxi waiting line thing, where a uniformed guard person found a cab for me. The cab driver was Indian, and we didn’t understand each other at all, so we just drove on in silence for the most part. And then he dropped me off at some street corner and said something about how this should be sort of where I needed to be, just down the street or round that corner or bla bla, and then he drove off.

So I called Faye, and she came and found me, and YAY NEW YORK! FOR REALS!

Last week, I went to New York City. Today, I suffered the consequences.

I’m back from New York, and I am going to make a longer post about it, but right now I just wanted to say that I am back. It was all kinds of awesome, and where usually I am totally ready to go home from wherever I’ve travelled to after 4-5 days, I was not quite ready to leave New York when I did. I could have stayed on longer without tiring of it.

Now, like I said… A longer post is coming, but I want to take some time to write it and include pictures in the post, so it’s not something I can just do in 5 minutes. Maybe some people are able to do it in 5, but I’m not. I just want to do it justice, because this was such a huge adventure for me, and it all seems so unreal now. I just…need to some time to digest it all.

Until then you can take a look at the photos I’ve put up on Flickr so far.

…I’m leaving tomorrow!

Wow. Where did time go? I thought I had ages left until my trip to NYC, and now it is TOMORROW. I’m actually in the process of writing a list right now of what to pack and where (I’m bringing a nearly empty suitcase, my bag and a laptop backpack), something that is essential to my travel planning.

… … …

Hours later, here I am again. I’ve showered, eaten, packed my suitcase and finished the lists. I’ve probably forgotten something, but the essentials are covered. I think. I’ve tried my best not to bring much clothing, so that I will have to buy new ones, oh no. I had to pack a couple of pairs of pants though, as I am too short to find any pants that wouldn’t require hemming. I’m already worried that I won’t have enough space in my suitcase when I leave NY… However, should that happen, I will just have to mail some of it.

And… I just have to post this now or it will never get done! I also need to try and get some sleep before it’s too late (it kinda already is…).

I’ve caught another cold. I honestly can’t believe it - I was sick just recently, and now I have a cold. It’s not bad enough that I’m staying home from work (but apparently bad enough that my typing is affected, it took me four tries to type ‘work’), but bad enough that I kinda wish I WAS staying home from work.

Because of the swine flu, we have this rule at work that if you’re experienced flu-like symptoms, you’re supposed to stay home for 7 days to avoid infecting others. However, I seriously can not bring myself to stay home because I have a clogged nose. Work is crazy busy for me these days, and I just sent home one of my co-workers yesterday because of flu symptoms (she had a fever and a general body ache though, so she’s worse off than I am, REALLY REALLY), so there really is no way I can not be at work this week. I have, however, promised myself that once Friday is over I can be sick and just relax at home.

I’ve also started physical therapy for my achy back/thigh/hip/butt, which is…ok, I guess. I was a little shocked the first time because I had to take off so much of my clothing, but I guess I should have expected that. Last session I got a rather awesome massage, which was…rather awesome (cold is also affecting my vocabulary (so much so that it took me a while to remember the word ‘vocabulary’, I was about to just type ‘affecting my words’)). My physical therapist person is also really nice. I was a bit apprehensive at first because out of the four people who work at the place, I was booked in with the one male. However, it wasn’t all that awkward, and he’s really nice. Also, the place is in the same building as the gym I go to, so I can combine PT sessions with a good workout. Win!

In somewhat more geeky news from my life, a whole new world has opened up for me after I realised that the Xbox 360’s ability to play DivX was just an update away. It connects to my laptop without delay and streams video over the wireless network with no trouble at all. It. Is. Awesome.

24 more days until I leave for New York! No butterflies yet, but I think it still hasn’t QUITE sunk in that I am actually going there. Wow. To ANOTHER CONTINENT. To meet FAYE. And KIM. And MATT. And HANNAH. And THE STATUE OF LIBERTY. And THE DINOSAURS.

THE DINOSAURS, PEOPLE!!

As those of you who follow me or Twitter and/or Facebook know, I am going to New York in late October/early November to visit a dear friend of mine, and of course, to see the city I’ve dreamed of seeing since FOREVER.

However, I didn’t really have a clear view of what I wanted to see in NY when asked. Faye (my friend) suggested we at least go to the Museum of Natural History, and I googled it at work today (because work was slow and I was so tired of correcting other peoples’ mistakes that I wanted to scream). And, I found that yes, I would indeed very much like to go to this museum, and there are two exhibits I MUST see there: Dinosaurs and space.

Two somewhat different fields of interest, no?

So as I was pondering this curious combination of dinosaurs and space, I suddenly remembered this dream I had once where dinosaurs returned to earth, and someone decided that we should send the T-Rex into space to get rid of it, BUT THEN IT SURVIVED. IN SPACE. I wanted to draw it for you, but then I remembered how absolutely awful my drawing skills are, so I made this collage instead:

If you know where the T-Rex has stolen his quote from, you are automatically cool and we should talk. Hit me up when you’re in the neighbourhood, ok?